


F is for Friends Who Do Stuff Together

by thatdamneddame



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bromance, Fluff, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 18:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdamneddame/pseuds/thatdamneddame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony walks in on Natasha painting Clint’s toenails and immediately regrets it. Or, Five Times Tony Walked in on Clint and Natasha, and One Time He Didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	F is for Friends Who Do Stuff Together

**Author's Note:**

> I found the first chunk of this hidden away at the end of one of my other fics. Prettyasadiagram told me to write it, and really, I've been positively wallowing in feels. I needed some joy in my life.
> 
> So, thank you prettyasadiagram and, also, thanks for coming up with the whole Dora thing. You're a rock star. This one's for you.

Tony walks in on Natasha painting Clint’s toenails and immediately regrets it.

Natasha snarls, “If you make me mess up the base coat, you’re dead, Stark.”

Clint says, “Hey man, can you get me another beer. My toes are drying.”

Many have accused Tony, over the years, of not knowing what’s good for him. They are all wrong; Tony’s retreat is swift.

 

 

The next morning, Clint is already dressed when Tony stumbles into the kitchen. He idly thinks about asking to see Clint’s toes, but swiftly stops thinking about it when his testicles retreat into his body at the thought of Natasha and her oddly protective streak where all things Clint are concerned. So instead, Tony pushes aside questions about why so many shades of fuchsia were needed and quietly gets himself some coffee.

“You didn’t get me my beer,” Clint accuses, and Tony is so focused on pointedly looking anywhere but Clint’s feet that he blurts, “Don’t touch my balls!”

And, clearly, Tony has been living with these people for far too long, because Clint doesn’t even bat a fucking eye. He just forcibly wrenches the coffee cup from Tony’s hand. “You need to take a vacation from the caffeine, dude,” Clint tells him and leaves the kitchen, yelling, “You owe me a beer!” as he goes.

Tony just pours himself another cup of coffee. Clint is wrong. There isn’t enough caffeine in the _world_ to deal with whatever the hell that was.

 

 

Tony lets it slide. He’s a cool guy. It’s not like he hasn’t done _worse_. It’s not like he and Rhodey haven’t done one or two things that neither of them likes to talk about.

Clint and Natasha, however, don’t seem to have a problem with it.

 

 

“Are you doing _couples yoga_?” Tony asks before he can help himself.

They’re in a highly improbably pose and Enya is pumping through the speakers. Tony is fairly certain that’s incense burning in the corner, but he can’t really tells since his whole body sort of seized up the moment he entered the room.

“It’s important to stay limber,” Clint tells him solemnly at the same time Natasha says, “You have seven PhDs, you figure it out.”

Tony is neither drunk enough nor caffeinated enough for this shit, and tells them so. Clint and Natasha both just laugh, bodies bending, smooth and fluid, into a position that Tony had previously thought was impossible. Enya bleeds into Norah Jones, and Tony could swear that Clint is humming along.

“I’m leaving,” he tells them, because if he doesn’t say it he might just end up staying here, watching Clint and Natasha doing increasingly upsetting things.

“You still owe me a beer!” Clint shouts at his retreating back.

Tony ignores him in favor of savagely repressing the memory.

 

 

Tony is playing checkers with Steve, minding his own business, when Natasha appears. She’s wearing yoga pants and smells like potpourri and when she sees Tony she says, “Clint and I are going out; the sunroom’s free,” all innocent-like, the she-devil.

Steve, of course, because he’s _Steve_ , asks, “What was going on in the sunroom?”

And so of course Tony has to tell him about the Enya and the bending and the incense and Clint’s _aggressively purple_ yoga pants, which, in retrospect, were much more offensive than the whole couple’s yoga thing and deserved much more attention at the time. Steve just laughs, like it’s funny, because clearly he is a man who has not seen the things Tony’s seen.

“Are you telling me you want to try couples yoga?” Steve asks. He’s a horrible person. Really, he is.

Tony just glumly moves one of the checkers and wishes for better friends.

 

 

For the most part, living with superheroes is like living with a bunch college kids. They all think they’re competent and understand the real world, but really, none of them do. At least Thor has an excuse.

“Tell me what you know of this Swiper,” Thor booms, “he seems like a formidable foe! Yet,” Thor adds, oddly contemplative, “easily foiled.”

Tony takes a sip of his Irish coffee before responding, “Say what, big guy?” He regrets asking, however, when he sees Natasha and Clint piled on the sofa watching _Dora the Explorer_ on the big screen.

“What was your favorite part?” asks Dora and Natasha throws popcorn at the screen while Clint genuinely answers, “I liked when we crossed the magic mountains.”

Despite his better judgment, Tony hears himself ask, “What the hell are you guys doing?”

Natasha pointedly mutes the TV, “Recon.”

Clint shoves a handful of popcorn into his mouth, “We’re learning Spanish.”

Really, Tony doesn’t know what he was expecting.

 

 

There is no reason for this. Really, there isn’t. Tony has done many things in his life, but he’s never been anything but respectfully terrified of Natasha once she was revealed to be Madame Death, and he always builds Clint the coolest trick arrows.

"Hey," Clint says, traipsing through the never-used-so-that’s-exactly-why-Tony’s-in-there dining room, "Boots, do you know how to say ‘where’s my beer’ in Spanish?"

“Donde esta mi cerveza.” Natasha dutifully answers.

"Is _that_ what this is about?" Tony demands, "You’re mad because I didn’t get you your damn beer?"

Clint is still laughing when Tony returns, shoving a six-pack of Sam Adams Oktoberfest into his arms.

 

 

It’s supposed to be about the beer. It’s supposed to be about Clint being the world’s biggest asshole because Tony accidently witnessed how tight a grip Natasha has on his balls. It was not supposed to come to this.

"You guys are trained assassins," Tony complains, "you're not supposed to be doing shit like this."

Natasha ignores him.  "Stop it, Clint," she says, slapping a piece of pink plastic out of his hand, "That goes in the dream kitchen."

Clint pouts, "What kind of dream house has a pink dream kitchen? What message are we sending?"

"Who is even letting you near children?" Tony demands, clearly the more important question here.

"Fuck off," is Natasha’s ever so eloquent response, followed by, "Don't assign genders to colors. Besides, we can paint it."

Tony now fears not that someone is letting Clint and Natasha near their kids, but, instead, that Clint and Natasha want a Barbie dream house for _themselves_. Tony is a billionaire, he should have people to deal with this shit for him.

 

 

"It was supposed to be about the beer," Tony tells Coulson. Not his first choice in confidante, but Pepper and Rhodey had rolled their eyes and reminded him of the many sundry things he’s done over the years, and Bruce had just asked how the dream house was coming along. "Clint was supposed to take the damn beer and they were supposed to stop tormenting me with their couple's bonding activities."

Coulson is leaning back in his chair looking quietly amused, which isn’t saying much, because Coulson looks quietly amused during mandatory trainings, prisoner interrogations, and that time someone had to explain to Thor that the Tower of Terror was not, in fact, actually haunted.

"It's important for SHIELD partners to foster a strong connection," Coulson says after he’s finished fishing the whole torrid tale out of Tony, "Agents Romanoff and Barton have been working together a very long time. As long as there is no property damage, SHIELD has a strict noninterference policy."

"But why were they even building a Barbie dream house? _We don’t know anyone with kids_." Tony cannot stress this enough.

Clearly, Tony thinks as Coulson escorts him from his office, everyone has gone mad and Tony is the last sane person in the whole wide world. Coulson just smiles blandly, "Goodbye, Mr. Stark."

 

 

There is no fighting it.

Clint, face covered in fruity smelling green clay, is carefully placing a pore strip on Natasha's nose. There’s shaving cream in the tub, razors on the counter, and honest to god cucumber slices in a small glass bowl.

"Just clean up when you’re done, would you," Tony says, resigned to it, "Steve's about to start a chore wheel."

Natasha just waves him away with one hand and eats a slice of cucumber.

 

 

Tony figures that he’s just going to keep running into Clint and Natasha bonding in ways that Tony didn’t think people actually _did_ outside of romcoms. Whatever. He'll get over it. Eventually. Probably. Which is why he is entirely unprepared to be confronted with Clint Barton's bare ass when he walks into the Avengers library.

"How do you even _do_ that?" Tony asks, impressed, despite himself.

"Yoga," Clint answers, shit eating grin firmly in place. It's then that Tony unfortunately realizes that the person Clint is engaging in a highly improbable sex act with is not, in fact, Natasha but Phil Coulson.

Tony figures wailing, "My eyes!" Is a tad overly dramatic, but not by a lot.

"Shut the door on your way out," Coulson, apparently immune to embarrassment, tells him as he makes a break for it.

Some things, Tony thinks, cannot be unseen.

 

 

When Tony walks in on Clint and Natasha matching paint chips to throw pillows, he just says, "Oh, thank God," and joins in.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the titles does come from Spongebob Squarepants. Think about it, that whole song pretty aptly describes Clint and Natasha, especially for the whole 'F is for fire that burns down the whole town' bit. Legit.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Podfic of F is for Friends Who Do Stuff Together by thatdamneddame](https://archiveofourown.org/works/928672) by [griffing07](https://archiveofourown.org/users/griffing07/pseuds/griffing07)




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